A wide variety of telecommunication applications utilize fiber optic cables, and in turn involve fiber optic cable splicing and fiber optic cable storage. In these applications, care must be taken to avoid unnecessary or excessive bending of the cables. Bending of fiber optic cables can, for example, cause attenuation, loss of signal strength, and sometimes complete loss of signal transmission through the fiber.
Splice trays are often used to organize and manage fiber optic cables. A splice tray typically holds a number of fiber optic cables. Generally, there are two types of fiber optic cables: stranded cable and ribbon cable. Stranded cable has a single fiber optic surrounded by an insulator. Ribbon cable has multiple fiber optics surrounded by a matrix and arranged side-by-side in a flat ribbon-like construction.
Stranded cable is generally circular in cross-section and is relatively small in size (typically about 900 microns in diameter). Because of the small size and configuration of stranded cables, a generous extra amount of each of the stranded cables of a splice tray can be stored around spools in the splice tray. The extra amount of cable, or slack cable, is often provided in the event a portion of the cable needs to be replaced or repaired, for example.
When utilizing slack stranded cable, the needed amount of slack cable is simply un-wound or removed from the spool, the repair completed, and the remaining slack cable re-wound around the spool. Because of the number of other stranded cables in the splice tray, the slack cable of each of the stranded cables most likely crosses over other cables as slack cable is utilized. While a neatly organized and managed cable arrangement is preferred, the relative small size and configuration of stranded cable does permit the cables to cross over one another when stored around spools in the splice tray.
Extra slack ribbon cable of a ribbon cable splice tray, however, cannot be utilized and stored as simply and easily as stranded cable. The flat ribbon-like construction of ribbon cable generally has a width of 0.125 inches. Because of the width of the flat ribbon cable, ribbon cables cannot cross-over one another, as the combined height of the ribbon cables exceeds the maximum storage height of splice trays.
In general, improvements to conventional arrangements for managing and storing both spliced fiber optic stranded cables and spliced fiber optic ribbon cable are desired.